


Love like a Tree

by wench_fics (WeasleyWench)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, ambiguious, heavyprose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeasleyWench/pseuds/wench_fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's love is like a tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love like a Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vaysh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaysh/gifts).



**Love Like A Tree (a free-verse poetic story) for 's Vaysh's 50th birthday**

Love is like a tree, Harry thinks. In all its permutations, in the end, it can be chopped down and broken into bits.

His love for Draco is strong, like the trunk. His love for everyone else is like the branches that sway to and fro: coming and going as his memory takes him. Some days he doesn’t even like himself very much, let alone his friends and colleagues. Today, he remembers to love them all. Today, he fights for love and its true power. Everything he has is because of love.

There are many things Harry wishes to do. But his love is tested. People hack away at the bark of his love with their words like axes. People who don’t know Draco like he does, doctors and nurses. They tell him Draco is bad for him and lie to him, but Harry knows his life is nothing without Draco Malfoy. 

There may be moss growing on his bark; there are plenty of bugs crawling through the cracks of the wood of his bole, but inside he remains strong. He has to. When they get too close to the core, Harry snaps like a twig under too much pressure. Harry feels the roots of himself exposed. Erosion takes the ground beneath him; acidic water eats away at the foundation of his love. This love he feels is as real as he and Draco are. 

A runnel has formed between parts of him. Silt and decay – the falsehoods people tell – get into him and make him feel like he’s lost his foundation. 

When he wakes up in the morning and Draco is gone, he feels that Draco no longer exists. In the end, he feels as though he’s alone: the mighty oak amongst pines, just waiting. Some uprooted… thing… that waits apart and solitary. The doctors he sees tell him it’s because of the war, that he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That he has the inability to create long-lasting attachments because of his childhood. Harry denies this. He denies that he’s schizophrenic and has made the ‘magic thing’ up. But they never believe him. He feels as though he’s lost on a shore, just waiting. Some distant… thing… that waits alone.

Then Draco comes home and Harry feels solid again, no longer hollow. He feels real. More real than that single word of devotion could make him feel. Words fade. 

Now, his foundation solidifies again. Harry reaches for Draco, who approaches. Taking his hand, Harry presses his lips to the wrinkled knuckles. Though there are secrets between them, Harry isn’t paranoid. He doesn’t doubt Draco. Not like the others. He doesn’t sway with their opinions; he’s too deeply rooted. Their wind ruffles his leaves, a minor irritation, but their words don’t cling to him the way he clings to Draco.

“After all this time?” Draco asks.

By now, there are fifty rings inside Harry. Some are thinner than others. The majority are, as they should be, thick ribbons. “Always,” Harry replies, accepting Draco’s arms around him like long-absent sunlight. This is all he has ever needed. 

Then Draco’s voice fades away like the wind. Harry tightens his arms around himself and shivers.


End file.
